Pollution Certificate Undha?

Today morning I was learning to ride the bike :) on the way to office. Normally we are stopped en route to office for checking the pollution certificate by the RTA officials. Recently however, the traffic policemen have gathered around the RTA Pollution checkers and stop the vehicles to ask for the pollution certificate.

So, unlucky me, I was stopped by them and we were asked to produce the certificate.

Traffic Police 1: "Pollution Certificate dhikao"

Us : "The bike is new and since it is just 5 months old, we donot have to show one"

TP 1: "TN Registration. Please show us the No Objection Certificate"

Us: (we did not have the NOC ) : "Do we have to get one within 6 months of moving the vehicle here?"

TP 1: "Yes"

Us : "Ok, we donot have one"

TP 1 : "Show me the RC book"

(we were fumbling for the RC book when another TP comes over and says)

TP 2 : "RC book ledhu ante 600 rupees fine" (if you donot have RC book 600 bucks fine)

Us : "We do have the RC book. Hold on"

Then we pulled it out and showed it to him.

TP 2 : "Ok NOC 450 rupees fine"

Us : "Alright but we will need the Challan for the same."

TP 2: "For challan we have to go to the Madhapur Police Station " (which is about 2 kms away from our place)....(I guess he realised we were in a hurry to go to office and said this so that we would feel lazy to go and get the money....)

We however said,

Us : "Thats ok, we would pay the fine. Which of you policemen would come with us to the Police station"

To that the guy said:

TP 2 (muttering under his nose) : "300 rupees dheke chale jaao" (give us 300 bucks and leave)

Us : "We donot have any money with us now. We have to get it from an ATM. We would go and get the same"

TP 2 : "Then leave your Licence with me and get the amount"

Me (to my friend): "I will stay back. You go and get the amount"

After a while my friend came with the money and we said

Us : " Ok let us go to the police station"

TP 1 : "We have to go to the Jubilee hills police station " (which is nearly 6 Kms away)

Us: "What?? You just told us madhapur station and now you are saying Jubilee Hills"

TP 1: "No sir, it is available only there"

Since we were already late for office and were quite pissed off, we decided we would give the money now, but would demand a challan to be given tomorrow..

TP 2 :" Sir, if you pay us once, we would never catch you again in this route. So you donot have to worry about that"

How dare he.

First of all it was wrong of him to ask for a bribe, and on top of that he is insinuating that we let this go.

Us : "Thats ok. We will come here again tomorrow, and you keep the challan ready. We will pay the remaining amount."

And we left.

Anyways, a few lessons learnt:

1) I dont think all of these policemen are genuine. When someone does not have a chellan book nearby to give us the fine, you better dont trust him to be a real policeman and pay the amount he asks for. He may not be authorised to collect money in the first place.

2) A lot of people just give money to get the heck over with, but it is better to be strong in certain cases and insist for original receipt

3) 100 rupees is not much different from 300 rupees , seeing how much we earn these days. Hence, please, please try to take the original receipt and not bribe the policman. Bribe givers breed corruption and not bribe takers. Bribe takers have nowhere to go , if no one is ready to pay the bribe. The 100 rupees that you give, will tempt him to ask for more from others.

Believe me, when we said that we want the chellan, you should see the look on the guys face. The policemen saw us with respect and they started to look down in shame. All they could do after that was just mutter under their noses and speak to us without looking at us on the face.

4) Try to get an NOC :) and try not to break traffic rules.